The impact of environmental change on the marine phytoplankton

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One of the most challenging tasks in understanding current global change is the untangling and quantification of the involved components and processes. While several processes have been successfully modelled by treating the Earth mainly as a physical or chemical system, the quantitative characterization of global change in the biosphere, for example in the marine ecosystem, is lagging far behind. However, any assessment of future climate change requires knowledge of the full range of natural variability. Therefore, my research is designed towards a fundamental understanding of how climate change affects the marine ecosystem, particularly the marine phytoplankton. For example, little is currently known about how long-term and short-term climate variability affect the production, diversity and evolution of marine phytoplankton. During the next five years I will continue my research activities on determining how marine phytoplankton has been affected by rapid environmental changes such as anthropogenic pollution, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Monsoons in the modern ocean as well as during the Holocene. This research involves the analysis of climate archives such as laminated sediments from key localities that sensitively record these rapid climate changes (e.g., the Gulf of California, the Cariaco Basin, and the Arabian Sea). The application of my recently developed techniques and proxies most suitable for ultra high resolution analysis of sediments (e.g., temperature and salinity proxies based on coccolith morphology and chemistry) guarantees high quality data. The knowledge obtained in this way will be essential in assessing the impact of future global change on the marine ecosystem.